Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Warlick - Education in a Flat World

David Warlick

Our Student, Our Worlds – Education in a Flat World

Similar theme to November's. Enjoyed the backchat. Examples were compelling and informative. Flat classroom means students and teachers are on an even playing field. I want to see more examples of teachers modeling this behavior and discussion of how it works and what challenges are.

What are the conditions that are converging that make this change necessary?

what is the backchat - taking a conversation and turning it into a document, content that can continue to be useful to us

We are spending too much time teaching kids how to use paper.

Three converging conditions

»unpredictable future – what do kids need to know to be prepared for a future that we no little about?

Richard Florida, author – moving from industrial age to a creative age

Living in the 20th century and learning in the 19th century classroom

»Info-oriented students – want to participate, invest themselves, connect to others, create and have people give them feedback

Universities are starting to ask the question how do I market to the MySpace generation.We need to think about this as well for K-12.

Students today learn technological skills from the kids around them.Vastness of the digital divide will come when we realize that these kids are learning from their learning community (facebook, bebo, xanga, aol).The kids on the other side of the digital divide don’t have the technology, but they also don’t have that community.

we need to teach kids how to choose how to communicate – IM speak versus formal English